Friday, March 9, 2012

Susan Kriegbaum-Hanks of Buffalo, New York, has combined her passion for the history of her city and region with her interest in German language and literature to post original German materials along with her translations online at <http://www.archivaria.com/>.

Included on this page is a translation of the history of Buffalo from a German perspective; the History of the Germans in Buffalo and Erie County; the autobiography of Charles Boller, Sunday School Superintendent of the First Church of the Evangelical Community; many materials on German Lutherans in North America and in Buffalo; articles from Buffalo newspapers and journals; and some photographs and images.

Also included are selections from Das Buch der Deutschen in Amerika (The Book of Germans in America), published in 1909 by Walter's Buchdruckerei in Philadelphia under the auspices of the National German-American Alliance (founded 1900). This massive tome provides a history of German immigrants from the 16th through the 19th centuries, with special emphasis on German contributions to the growth of this nation and to American culture. Kriegbaum-Hanks provides images and translations for the biographies of German-American poets (pp. 368 – 419), a brief history of Buffalo's German-language press, and the creation of National German-American Alliance, known as "The Bund," along with biographies of its founders and prominent members.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

This concise entry in the Was gibt's Neues? section of the May 1890 Das Evangelische Magazin (Cleveland, Ohio) leads modern readers into an interesting chapter in American history:

"Here's the most recent information about the importation of German songbirds birds into the area of Portland, Oregon: In the town of Milwaukie, about seven miles southeast of Portland on the Willamette River, a flock of approximately 16 young German larks has been observed; these are the first offspring of a group of larks brought to Portland by the German Songbird Society. German thrushes and blackbirds were found foraging in many of Portland's gardens over the winter, and they regularly nested in the Germania Gardens there. Soon the migratory birds will begin to return, and hopefully those German ones that left in the fall also won't forget to come back."

German-speaking immigrants missed the birds they had known from their childhood, and efforts were undertaken throughout the 19th century to introduce these species to North America. In his 1891 book Die Nordamerikanische Vogelwelt (Milwaukee, Wis.: Geo. Brumder), ornithologist and horticulturist Henry Nehrling describes reasons behind efforts to acclimatize foreign birds in this way: "With longing he [the German immigrant] thinks back to those times when the nightingale’s song permeated the grove, the exultant trilling of the lark rang down from the blue heaven, and the fluting tones of the blackbird, the love song of the blackcap, and the call of the chaffinch resounded from mountain and valley. This love for the old homeland and for the songbirds that brightened one’s younger days motivated the founding of so-called acclimatization societies [Einbürgerungsvereine] in several locales.”

Ignoring objections raised by prominent ornithologists, German songbirds were introduced in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Boston, and New York. Of the many birds released in these areas, Nehrling reports that only goldfinches in Boston and New York, and some larks in other places, were successfully domesticated. Most of the experiments ended in failure, because the severe winter weather of the eastern, northern, and central states annihilated the exotic birds there.

In 1889, an attempt to bring German songbirds to the mild climate of Portland, Oregon, fared much better. Mr. Pflüger, the Secretary of the “Verein zur Einführung nützlicher deutscher Singvögel in Oregon,” reports that 300 pairs of German songbirds were imported, including nightingales, blackcaps, blackbirds, larks, song thrushes, bullfinches, siskins, quail, crossbills, and various types of Sylvia. Many reproduced successfully and could within a few years be found all over the state, with many of them remaining through the winter rather than migrating. Mr. Pflüger writes that “in the spring of 1890 a little snow fell. One saw blackbirds flying around together with American robins. Many of the native Americans stared in astonishment at the black birds with yellow bills, which otherwise closely resembled robins; they had never seen anything like them before. . . . One also now hears the singing of song thrushes on a daily basis.” The imported nightingales probabhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifly became extinct, as few survived the long trip from Europe, and none have been seen since. But the success http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giflhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifed the Society to import another large group of birds in March of 1891: Mr. Pflüger reported then that the Skylarks, Blackbirds, Goldfinches, Siskins, Linnets, and Greenfinches were doing especially well.

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25 Years or 325 Years

The Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (MKI) turned 25 years old in October of 2008. Sounds like a long time, but not much compared to the fact that the first German settlement in North America (Germantown, Pennsylvania) was established some 325 years ago.

We've started this blog as a way to showcase some of the work we're doing. We also see it as an opportunity to examine the influence immigrants have had on America—-after all, except for the indigenous people of the Americas, we're all of immigrant stock here.

We'll post some ideas that are running through our heads these days; we hope you'll find them of interest and will feel like offering your own comments.